Even most of the cops do not want to use plastic bullets, water cannon or the Army. and many of these cops have served in NI and worked alongside soldiers and used these weapons and know it hasn’t stopped the civil war there, and is more likely to start one in England – and isn’t really worth it over what is a comparatively small number of criminals.
It is the middle class people who have never lived in a inner city before or who live in nicer areas of one who are calling for this and that is only because of their anger they cannot go to town and take matters into their own hands like has happened in some foreign nations or more correctly they are too shit scared to do so,unlike some of the British Asians who have given their lives to try and protect their family busineses.
Also the rioters are cowards too. They cannot attack the bankers or politicians directly, because where they live are target-hardened and these people are used to being unpopular and at risk of even direct physical attack or assasination (which happened 20-30 years ago) so they just take on anyone they think has a bit more than them.
This is also putting at risk the old British idea of “policing by consent” which is why there are in fact only about 35 000 cops in a country of 71 000 000, no gendarmes and only specialist armed police.
There may be change but it is not always good. this exact same stuff happened in Malaysia just after it became independent, the Malays, Indians and Chinese all fought each other for control, and there was a economic crisis as the British pulled out their money along with their colonial control. The result was they had to bring back some of the British colonial soldiers for peacekeeping (which remained until 1970s) and whilst they got democratic government it remains one of the most authoritarian governments with a “Westminster” (British) political system.
